


gadgets and gizmos aplenty

by Cynder713



Category: Spies Are Forever - Talkfine/Tin Can Brothers
Genre: Coming Out, Gen, Humor, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 02:03:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20899835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cynder713/pseuds/Cynder713
Summary: Since he left the Service, Curt has made a habit of breaking into Barb's office to weasel tech out of her. She doesn't really mind, especially when it gives her the opportunity to pry into agent Mega's love life...





	gadgets and gizmos aplenty

Barb set down the heavy box of circuit boards on her new desk (a lovely solid piece of wood, courtesy of her recent promotion) and collapsed into her chair (also new, orthopedic), sighing. 

“Long day at the office, eh Barb?” said a voice from behind her. 

She squeaked and jumped up, spinning around and almost crashing into the source of the voice, who easily caught her shoulders and held her at arm's length. 

“Curt!” A huge grin took over her face. She moved to hug him and he let her fall sideways so he could poke around in the box.

“Damn, it's been ages hasn't it! You must have missed me.”

“I sure did!’ She picked herself up and slotted into her fancy new chair, trying to lean back in it casually. 

“So… what do you think of my new office?”

“Well, I wouldn't go so far as to use either of those words to describe it but it's… homey.”

She stroked the side of her desk self-consciously. “Well, you've been keeping yourself busy, Mister secretive secret agent! Been busy taking down Chi-”

“Hey hey hey hey!” Curt cut her off, “ex nay on the imera chey, okay… ay?”

“Oh right! Sorry. But so you _ have _ been busy?”

“Yeah, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. You know how it is.”

There was a long pause. 

“So is there anything I can do to help-”

“Barb, I am so glad you asked. Now, I'm sure you've got all sorts of fun gadgets just lying around gathering dust-”

“Well actually, we try to make use of all of our tech in the field, we have this recycling policy-”

“So I know it won't be any trouble for you to pass a few - little - things my way.”

Another long pause hung between them.

“… I'm sure there are a few things we could do without-”

“_ That’s _ what I like to hear!”

He looked at her expectantly, smiling. Barb couldn’t help the slight swoon that came upon her, but it didn’t last long after she realized he meant, like, right this second.

“Ohh, well, I don't really have anything on hand at the moment I could give to you-”

Curt clapped her on the shoulder, already turning for the door. “Well, Barb it's been great catching up, I'll call you, don't call me, I’m pretty sure I don’t have a phone-”

“_ But _ if you came back later, say next week, I could scrounge up a couple things, maybe?”

Curt spun on his heel. “I knew I could count on you! It's a date.” 

Barb giggled manically, as Curt continued to clarify, “a date like an appointment that is, because of course we wouldn't be going out together. Ever.”

He smiled boyishly, the matter apparently settled. Barb tried her best to return the expression and appear unfazed.

“Yeah, uhuh, yup. Appointment. Got it.”

The worried glance he shot her way before disappearing out the door suggested that she hadn’t quite pulled it off.

* * *

The next time Curt showed up, Barb was in the middle of a very delicate bit of programming that was taking up practically her every waking minute. It was imperative that she get it done before the main system went online at the end of the week, which she was sure she would manage, but still it never hurt to get things done early as this way she’d have time to double check everything-

The door to her office swung open violently, bouncing off the wall.

-well, she’d at least have it all done on time.

“Good morning, Barb!”

“It's 2pm,” she replied shortly, examining the dent left in the wall where the door handle had made impact. She really needed to invest in a doorstop.

“And what a beautiful morning it is. Say, is that a present there, for me?”

Barb looked down at her bare desk. 

“There's nothing there, Curt.” 

“No- yeah, I know that, I was just- whatever, did you get any cool gadgets for me?”

Barb rolled her eyes fondly. It was hard to stay mad at him, even with all the collateral damage.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I did.”

She reached into the top drawer of her desk and pulled out a small black case. Curt leaned over the desk, impatiently trying to get a look. She held it very deliberately out of his reach. 

“Careful, agent, this box contains a highly dangerous, highly volatile, _ highly deadly _ device. I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself with it.”

“Barb, c’mon. It's me you’re talking to.”

“Yes, I am well aware.”

He frowned at her. “Just hand it over.”

Barb made a show of very carefully placing the box in Curt’s hand, upright and facing towards him, then jumped back. 

“OK, now you can open it,” she said from under her desk. 

“Barb, you're really filling me with confidence here.”

He squinted down at the unassuming box, shrugged, and flipped it open. 

“...Barb, these are earbuds.”

She started cackling. 

“Oh my god, are you OK? Are you choking? I don’t know the Heimlich but I can go find someone who does-”

She pulled herself up from behind the desk, still laughing like a hyena. Curt looked more scared now than he had when he opened the box. 

“Oh, wow, I got you good, Curt!”

Curt’s smile was a little strained as he replied, “great, cool. What do they do?” 

Barb cleared her throat to chase off the last of her giggles. “Right. These earbuds, well I suppose you could actually call them headphones, since they sit on top of your head, under your hair. I've been noticing higher than desired numbers of agents having their cover broken by the discovery of their earpieces, so I wanted to develop something to combat that.”

“That's never happened to me.”

“That's because you have never stayed undercover for longer than it takes to walk into a room and announce yourself to every bad guy in view.”

Curt looked a bit taken aback, opened his mouth to defend his honor, then conceded the point. 

Barb raised her eyebrows, nodding at him, and continued. “These are _ undetectable _ once they're in place, and there's the added bonus of some _ very _cool science where they use vibrations and the bones in your skull to get the sound to your ears, without actually having to have them in your ear at all! Pretty cool, huh?”

“For a communication device, sure. Add a feature where I can use it to blow up someone’s head, and then you’re talking.”

Curt took one of the buds out of its case and rolled it around in his hand, squished it between his fingers.

“Don’t do that too much, you’ll make the polymer lose its malleability.”

He rolled his eyes. “So how does this thing…?”

He gestured vaguely at his head.

“Oh, it’s simple! The base is adhesive, so you just place it behind your hairline…”

Barb reached for the flat little disk as if to demonstrate on Curt. He evaded her expertly, backing out of her grasp.

“I’m sure I can figure it out, but thanks!”

Curt put the device back in its box.

“So there’s two of these in here…?”

“Right. I thought you could maybe lend the other one to anyone you might, possibly, just happen to be working with. In the field.”

“...right.”

Barb went back to typing on her keyboard, looking at Curt surreptitiously out of the corner of her eye, gauging his reaction.

“Are you? Working with anyone else in the field, that is?”

Curt frowned in total confusion at her disconcerting side-eye. He twirled the box around between a thumb and forefinger, and had just opened his mouth to answer, maybe even honestly, when Barb added:

“Like, maybe, Tatiana?”

Curt shut his mouth. Something passed over his face as he fell back into his comfortable persona. 

“Oh, you know how it is, Barb. One partner could never tie me down! I'm a love ‘em and leave ‘em type! Confirmed bachelor!”

His eyes widened. 

“Uh, strike that last one. But, you get the point.”

“Oh, so you’re not currently seeing anyone- any _one_ spy partner?”

If Curt’s eyebrows weren't raised before, well. 

“No, I’m kinda just doing it solo at the moment,” he said hesitantly. 

Barb heaved a wistful sigh. 

“I don't know, Curt, I still think you'd be happier if you had some constant in your life. Someone you knew you could always count on, fall back on. Who's always there to help you out in a mission, whether it be with intel, by being by your side, or even helping you from the sidelines by providing you with useful tools and gadgets.” 

Curt looked from the case in his hand to Barb’s face. She met his eyes, desperately searching for anything that could hint at a mutual understanding between them.

“Nah!” 

He threw the box up and caught it out of the air, turned on his heel, and walked out.

“‘till next time, Barb. Oh, and maybe you could get me something a little more... _ offensive _ next time?” he threw over his shoulder.

Barb started to reply but he was already out the door.

She sighed to herself, less wistful and more resigned this time, and busied herself with erasing the security footage of his appearance. 

* * *

“They upped the security measures since last time I was here, huh?” said Curt, breathing heavily. “Not that it matters, nobody but you knows that I'm here. Haha, yeah, still got it.”

Barb glanced down at the mangled remains of the security system in her desk she had just finished tearing apart to stop the four alarms Curt had set off on his way in. 

“Yeah, you sure do!”

She quietly closed the drawer. 

“So, former-agent, what can I do you for?”

“Well for starters you can drop that former prefix. Just cause I quit the Service before they could fire me, and never managed to get hired anywhere else because of my shitty record, and am currently unemployed, and have no official income…”

He trailed off. 

“Just because?” Barb prompted gingerly. 

Curt shook himself free of his despondence. 

“Right! Just because all that, doesn't mean I'm not still a secret agent!”

“I mean, it kinda, sorta, does, actually…”

“Semantics! Now, what do you have for me this time?”

“Well, you took off last time without telling me what you needed or when you would be back, so I had to do a lot of guessing.” 

“I do distinctly remember asking you for something a little more weapon-y this time.”

“Yes, that’s true, but I can’t give you anything too dangerous or I’ll be arrested as an accomplice to treason.”

“Can you even be just an ‘accomplice’ to treason? Wouldn’t, like, anything you do to help me just be straight up treason?”

Barb’s hands froze mid-way through opening the bag she had just fetched from her bottom drawer.

Curt barreled on ahead, unnoticing.

“Hey! What’cha got in there?”

He grabbed the bag and started rifling through it.

“Curt! Be careful!”

Barb jumped up and made to pull the bag back to her side of the desk but he waved her off.

“Just - ok, but be gentle – _ don’t touch that part _ \- alright, now just, just move slowly, please-”

Rolling his eyes but still following her frazzled instructions, Curt pulled from the bag a black plastic stick with a solid rubber handle. 

He flipped it in the air once and caught it again, ignoring Barb's mini heart attack. 

“Why was I being so careful with this thing? It's just a lump of plastic.”

“Just make sure you don't touch the other end of it.” 

“Why, is it live?” 

“Live what?” 

“I dunno. Just… live?”

Now it was Barb's turn to roll her eyes. 

“It's not 'live', but it is untested in the field so I don't want you taking any risks and even as I'm saying that I'm realizing how futile it is to expect you to listen to me.”

Curt turned back to face her from where he'd been twirling the device around like a juggler. 

“Hmm?”

Barb heaved an impressive sigh. 

“Just make sure you always hold it by the handle?”

“Sure, whatever, so what does it do?”

Barb perked up a bit. This was one of her own inventions, in fact, and she was rather proud of it. 

“It's a stun baton, essentially, but while you're holding onto the handle end it balances the electrons in your body and makes it impossible for you to get electrocuted! You can use it on someone even if they're grappling you, and they'll get shocked but you won't! I call it a Faraday baton.”

“Alright! Terrible name but I'll workshop that later! I love it! Where can I test it out?”

Barb took a conspicuous step back.

Curt laughed. “No, don’t worry, I wasn’t suggesting I use it on you, silly!”

Barb sighed in relief and moved forwards again.

“Although, you are the only person here…”

She froze.

“Kidding! I’m kidding!”

She relaxed.

“Unless-”

Curt laughed wildly at the look on Barb’s face, somewhere between anger and intense frustration. She took advantage of his distraction to grab the baton back.

“Hey! That’s not fair, I wasn’t ready.”

Barb put the baton back in the bag and zipped it up. She handed the bag over to Curt, opened her desk drawer, reached in, connected two wires and didn't flinch when all four alarms started blaring at once. 

“If you don't hurry out of here, you could test it out on our security team!”

She smiled sweetly. 

A grin crept onto Curt’s face. He nodded, impressed, and took off.

* * *

The next time agent Mega broke in he managed to avoid setting off every alarm in the building. 

It had occurred to Barb that giving him a weapon, even a non-lethal one, was probably not the grandest of ideas, and encouraging him to use it against the Service’s own security team even less so, but she'd kept an eye out for any suspicious incident reports and, thankfully, nothing had come up. 

So he swaggered in one day just as Barb was getting acquainted with her lunch, something she hadn't had time to do that whole week. 

“Barb you beautiful devil you, the Stun One Gun worked perfectly!”

Barb sighed as she put her sandwich down, then what Curt had said actually made it through to the language parts of her brain and she forgot all about her hunger. 

“What did you call it?”

“Oh, right, remember how I said that the name you gave it was stupid? Well, it was, so I gave it a new name! Way, better, right?” 

“But… it doesn't really make sense? It's a baton, not a gun, and the name implies that it only stuns one thing at a time, when really it could stun many people just not the person touching the handle, and also ‘stun’ is kinda a misnomer too-”

“But that's old news now, Barb! It's a new day, a new mission. Stands to reason I should have a new weapon.”

“You mean a new gadget?”

“Sure, whatever!”

“Well, I know how much you loved your rocket shoes-”

“You got me new rocket shoes? Holy shit, do these ones let me fly?!”

“No.”

“Aw.”

“Curt I'm not going to give you anything that could be perceived as dangerous-”

“C’mon Barb, you know I can handle it!” 

“-_ to the agency _.” 

“Ah.” 

“No matter how much I like you…” she shot him a look heavy with meaning that still managed to fly about a foot above his head, “I'm not losing my job, or my ability to walk freely in this country, over you.” 

He nodded solemnly. 

“That's fair.”

He made a real effort to stay serious this time, for a whole ten seconds. 

“… so about those rocket shoes?”

“Agent-”

“I know, I know! I get that I can't have exactly those again, but you were about to mention something I _ could _have!”

Barb couldn't stay stern. Besides, she was really excited for someone to take these puppies (not to be confused with Hush Puppies, other brands are available) out in the field. 

"OK, so I do have some new shoes for you.”

She grabbed a pair of black dress shoes from the space under her desk, next to where she kept her heels when she wasn't wearing them. Come to think of it, it'd been so long since she'd put those on they might not fit her anymore. 

As soon as she put the new shoes on the table Curt’s eyes lit up. 

“These are going to be invaluable to all our agents, once I can get the agency to patent them! They look just like any fancy dress shoes, so they can be worn to all sorts of high profile events and not look out of place or suspicious, but the soles are made of this special polymer I designed that lets it adapt to any surface!”

She struck a pose, arms and eyes wide in the face of her own brilliance.

“Need to chase a perp over a frozen lake? These bad boys will stretch to suit the slippery terrain and you won't be sliding anywhere!”

She changed poses, now spreading her arms out low to the ground. 

“Or perhaps you need to sneak past a whole security team silently! The sole of these babies can mould itself into a soft foam that makes practically no noise against any hard floors. You could walk right behind a guard and they'd hear nothing!”

Pose number three involved a mountain-climbing arm arrangement, and one foot poised in mid air.

“Scaling the glass wall of an eighty story skyscraper? You better believe these fuckers will develop suction cups on the toes that can stick to the smoothest of surfaces, no problem! You won’t be able to fall off if you try!”

“Oh man,” said Curt. 

Barb grinned. 

“Right? Aren't they the coolest?”

Curt nodded his head absently. 

“They go with my turtleneck way better than the brown ones,” he muttered to himself.

“Mega, were you even listening to me?!”

“I was Barb, promise! It's just…”

Barb sighed and braced herself. 

“Just what?”

“So the shoes are great, I really do love them, especially that stealth mode you mentioned, I can't even count the number of times that's gonna come in handy! But…”

Here, Curt cast his eyes down, avoiding Barb's. 

“What if, and this is just a hypothetical situation so don't read anything into it, but what if I needed to sneak into a place…”

“Just spit it out, agent!”

“-with someone?” 

Barb froze. 

“Oh.” 

Curt met her gaze now, eyes wide. 

“You know what, forget I said anything! It was just hypothetical, right? So it doesn't matter!”

“No, agent, it's a… it's a valid point.”

“Yeah?” Curt allowed himself to look a bit hopeful. “Does that mean you'll make me another pair?”

Barb sat down, still no emotion showing on her face. 

“Yes, of course. After all, it does you no good staying hidden if your… partner gets caught.”

Curt beamed and punched her in the shoulder companionably. 

“You're the best, Barb!”

He grabbed the shoes and kept smiling all the way out the door. 

Barb rubbed absently at where he'd punched her arm. 

“I sure am.” 

* * *

You know what, Barb told herself, this is actually perfect. She had a genius level IQ, of course she realized her crush on agent Mega was both unrequited and a little pathetic. This was just gonna be the last push she needed to really get over him, finding out about his new… partner. She was smart enough to understand that too; the only reason Curt would be so hesitant to talk about this woman was because they were involved, it was so obvious! 

So she resolved to be completely open and supportive, and to not try to pry any more than she already had. 

This resolve lasted a good two minutes into their next conversation. 

“Oh, and here are the second set of malleable soled shoes… You know, you left before telling me what size you needed.”

Curt grunted a little and kept poking at the triple strength radio receiver watch Barb had gifted him with when he first arrived. 

“Luckily the nature of the material, which they are almost entirely composed of, allows for a lot of variation, but while we're here, why don't you tell me a bit about her? It might give me a better idea of what style to program the shoes to.”

“Her? Who her?” Curt asked distractedly. 

Barb squirmed a little but her curiosity got the better of her. 

“Your new partner?”

Curt snapped his head up. 

“My… right! My new partner. Who is a woman. How do you know… that she's a woman? Which she, of course, is.” 

“Well, I don't mean to pry, but the way you were so hesitant to admit you even had a new partner, I guess I kinda assumed it would be someone… you know… someone you're kinda sweet on.”

A dopey smile crept onto Curt’s face. Barb pointed at it. 

“See! It's kinda obvious. You should see the look you get when you think about her.” 

The smile vanished. “Right. When I think about her. About my new partner, who is a woman. A female woman and everything.”

Barb wasn't sure what she'd said to ruin his good mood. 

“Look, forget I even asked, none of my business, right?”

“You're right. It isn't,” he snapped. 

Barb hunched her shoulders a little and sank further down into her chair. 

Curt rubbed one hand over his face and looked at her again. 

“I'm sorry, Barb, I’ve just had a lot on my mind lately; I didn’t mean to be short with you. I don't mind you asking questions about my… love life.”

Barb perked back up, opening her mouth to continue the interrogation. 

Curt looked a bit panicked and made a show of checking his watch. 

“Oh shit, Barb, I gotta go.”

“Did you get a message on that new communication watch I gave you?”

“Uh, yeah, there's an emergency.”

“I didn't even hear it go off!”

“Big emergency, gotta go take care of it, lots of peril and mayhem and what-have-you.” 

“I haven't even programmed it yet!”

“So sorry to rush off like this but you know how it is.” 

He threw the last part over his shoulder as he made his escape. 

“Be safe!” Barb called out after him. 

Well, that conversation had gone both better and worse than she had expected, but Curt seemed open to talking more about it in the future, so Barb was gonna count that as a win. 

* * *

Agent Mega certainly seemed to be in a better mood the next time Barb saw him. She didn't want to push her luck and scare him off with more personal questions, but also wasn't this the perfect time to ask? When he was already in a good mood? Unless it turned his good mood bad in an inversely proportional way, that would be the worst possible outcome! Well, the _ worst _possible outcome would be him turning evil and killing her, or maybe just turning her in as his accomplice and ruining her career and sending her to jail, oh God he had so much dirt on her and the evidence to prove it why did she ever think this was a good idea-

“You really are a genius, Barb! That second pair of shoes fit perfectly, even when you'd never met my new partner before!”

Oh. Ok. Well, if he was gonna bring it up himself. 

“I'm glad to hear it! Just for my notes, what size is she?”

Oh great, Barb, ask for her foot measurements, that'll satisfy your curiosity. 

“Well, you know. Average. An average shoe size for a woman, is the size of my partner's feet.”

“You can just say you don't know if you don't know, it's not that big a deal.”

“Right! That does make more sense. Anyway, Barb, the shoes were great and now I cannot wait to see what you've got in store for me this time!”

Barb opened one of her desk drawers and shuffled around in it, deliberately taking her time. 

“I've just got to put the finishing touches on this next gizmo-”

Curt groaned. 

“-so while you're waiting, why don't you tell me a little bit about her?” 

“Who?” 

“Your new partner?” 

“Oh! Yes! Her!”

Curt stood silently while Barb kept shuffling. She rattled the contents of the drawer a little louder to snap him out of it. 

“Right! Um. What do you want to know?” 

She refrained from rolling her eyes. 

“Anything! I'm not even really listening, just talk about whatever!” 

She pointedly focused her attention on the drawer. 

Curt watched her for a few seconds more. He sat down in the office’s guest chair and began to talk, glancing over every now and then to see if Barb was still transfixed by her task. 

“Well… We met on a mission. I mean, _ she _ was on a mission, I kinda gatecrashed it, but same difference right?” 

Barb made a carefully calculated non-committal noise of acknowledgement.

“So, yeah, um, met on a mission. It was in Paris, so, you know, city of romance and all that. I was actually only in town to keep an eye on this U.S diplomat I thought might’ve been taken in by Chimera, and… she was there to assassinate him.” 

Curt’s gaze wandered a bit. 

“Pretty funny first meeting, when you look at it. I actually ended up having to save this guy's life so I could get some names and locations out of him, which meant finding this other agent and stopping… her, and to stop _ her _ from killing _ me _ I had to explain Chimera and everything about it. That got her on my side and we interrogated the guy together.”

He chuckled. 

“And after all that she still got to kill him so nobody's out of a job and there are no hard feelings! We've worked on a few missions together since then, although my involvement isn't strictly by the book, you understand. Or even _ on _the book, really.” 

Barb was about to prompt him to tell her a bit more about this mystery woman, maybe even divulge a name - not that she needed one to search for every mission by a fellow intelligence agency that matched Curt’s description but a name would certainly make it easier - when he spoke again on his own. 

“Honestly I just think I'm lucky someone like that would even want to associate with someone like me. You know, a fuck up? Could've just killed me the second I interfered with the mission, but to actually hear me out, and more than that! To _ listen _to me, even knowing my, uh, my less than stellar record as of late…” 

Curt seemed to remember he had an audience for his musings and straightened up in the chair. He cleared his throat. 

“Takes a special kinda person,” he finished gruffly. 

Barb, who had stopped trying to pretend she was still looking for something in her drawer somewhere around “fuck up”, met his eyes for the first time since he started talking. 

She slowly straightened up and closed the drawer. 

“Well, agent, I'm glad to hear you've found someone who astounds you like that.”

It was the truth. Seeing Curt for the flawed man that he really was had helped somewhat in Barb getting over her crush/hero worship. And now, if Curt had found someone that made him smile like that… well, Barb was happy that he was happy, and it could be a real push in the campaign for her to properly get over him. 

“Thanks, Barb,” Curt said quietly. Once he noticed she'd stopped rooting around in her desk he perked up. 

“Oh, did you finish it?” 

“Finish what?”

“The device!”

“Oh that! Yeah I don't actually have anything for you this time.” 

Just cause she was getting over him didn't mean she had to reward him for the pleasure of hearing him gush about his new girl. Even if she was the one who'd asked in the first place. 

She smiled at Curt’s pout. 

“I'll make it up to you next time.”

He shot her an accusatory finger gun as he left. 

“You better!” 

* * *

Barb waited a whole minute for Curt to be safely out of the room before she rushed down to archives to look through all the intel the Service had on allied agencies’ missions. It took five hours and a bunch of cross referencing and she was really going to have to chat with the head of this department about their filing system but she eventually found one mission report that could possibly be a match. 

She lifted it reverently from the piles surrounding her - on desks, on the floor, on top of nearby filing cabinets - paused for a moment to admire her own persistence, and opened it. 

After skimming her eyes over the first page she slammed it - as much as you can slam a manila folder - shut and leaned back in her chair, eyes closed. 

All that research, all that cross checking and double checking and eliminating and re-evaluating… and she still had the wrong file. 

Well, the mission part of the file looked basically spot on, even if it didn't mention anything about an outsider interfering, but for all the similarities it couldn't be the right file because the only agent mentioned in it was some CIA guy, Alexander Glass or whatever, who cared. 

Barb wondered briefly if Curt might have lied to her. She dismissed it just as quickly. He hadn't even really been talking to her, as wrapped up as he'd gotten in his own story. And it's not like Curt was gonna lie to _ himself _ about anything! 

It could have been a filing error. Maybe there was a page that fell out of the file pertaining to Curt’s mystery woman, or even a whole nother file meant to be with this one. Barb double checked the file, searched the floor around that cabinet in case it had fallen out, and even checked all the other files in that drawer, as if it could have snuck sideways into one of them. 

No such luck. 

After ten minutes of looking, and the overarching five hours of initial file hunting, Barb was done for the day. She took the mission report back to her office, threw it onto her desk and collapsed into her chair. 

She sat for a moment, savoring not doing anything for the first time in… god, maybe like, since grade school? 

That didn't last long, however. She reached out to straighten the folder up, lining one of its edges to be parallel to her inbox. She fiddled with it for a few seconds before relenting and pulling it towards her across the smooth surface of the desk. 

She opened it up and started reading again. 

Even though she'd barely glanced at it the first time, the more she read now the more she knew she had definitely been right, this was a perfect match for the mission Curt had reminisced about in front of her, except for the fact that it made no mention of the agent he'd talked about working with. It wasn't the longest mission file, just a perfunctory and unaccented write up of the mission, and it made no mention of Agent Mega. If Curt hadn't gone into so much detail there would've been no reason to suspect this was anything but an ordinary mission. She read the file a few times over before deciding she wasn't going to learn anything from it, and finally opened the section on this Agent Glass.

He was CIA, had been with the agency for almost ten years. It seemed most of his missions involved dirty and corrupt politicians, whether it be simply exposing their crimes or, in a few examples of extreme cases, removing serious offenders from the gene pool altogether. The mission Curt had met his lady on really did seem right up this Agent Glass’ alley. Once again Barb was confronted with a set of facts that should have lined up perfectly. The only thing that threw it all out was Curt’s testimony. Having already ruled out Curt straight up lying meant Barb was clearly missing something. 

Finally, of course, the answer to the puzzle hit her. It was so obvious. This mystery woman, this seemingly mythical person whom Curt was so taken with. She wasn't in the file because she was actually…

Undercover!

Barb could have kicked herself for not seeing it sooner. The Service wouldn't have access to personnel files if the allied agent was deep undercover! And what a great job they'd done of expunging her from the record. Barb was seriously impressed. 

Now, to figure out how to bring this up to Curt without looking like a stalker. 

* * *

In hindsight, being the one to contact Curt first wouldn't have exactly alleviated his suspicions, but she was committed now. 

It also meant she had to make up some new gadget to say she had for him. And then she had to actually design and build said gadget because it would be too suspicious again to ask him here for the first time and also not actually have the thing she promised. So she ended up spending her entire weekend off inventing a new type of kevlar that was segmented so you didn't have to throw the whole vest away when you got shot once. 

When she showed it to the R&D department heads they went on about patents and possible business partnerships with the military, but Barb was just relieved to have a viable excuse for asking Curt about his love life.

So, when he showed up two days later, Barb distracted him with the shiny new toy before he could manage more than a bemused quirk of his eyebrows. 

“-and I'm sure that'll come in handy the next time you get into a shoot-out, or, more likely, the next time you piss someone off enough to double tap you.”

“You say that like it happens every time I leave the country!” 

“No you're right, that's not fair of me.”

“Thankyou!”

“It's happened to you plenty of times when you haven't even left American soil.” 

Curt threw his hands up. 

“If you've just called me here to criticize my spying techniques-”

“No, no!” she hurried to placate him, “I'm sure you won't even need to use this, but you know what they say… Better to have it and not need it…”

“Than to need it and get shot more than once and be wearing useless body armor, I know, I know.” 

Curt put on the vest and pulled his suit jacket over the top of it. Once on it was undetectable, a feature the team in the lab had been particularly impressed with, given the way the new material was constructed. 

Curt looked down at his chest and grinned. 

“Nice job, Barb!”

She waved his compliment away with one hand. 

“You can thank me for it after it saves your life.”

“No, I meant thank you for making something that doesn't ruin the lines of my suit!” 

Barb stared straight ahead into space while Curt daintily settled himself in the other desk chair.

“And even when you sit down! This is some quality engineering, Barb!”

She opened her mouth to voice one of the many, many issues she took with Curt’s priorities, before remembering why she was buttering him up in the first place. She switched track mid thought and managed not to look like she was having a stroke. 

“So, agent, been on any more missions with your lady friend?” 

That made Curt pull back more than if she'd told him off. He stopped smiling and crossed his arms over his chest. 

“Uh, yeah, a few. Why- why do you ask?” 

Barb blinked. 

“I just… I thought you might wanna talk about what you've been up to?” 

He shrugged. 

“I, well, I bring it up because I happened, just by chance you see, to come across a file that sounded like the mission you were telling me about-”

“Were you checking up on me?” 

“What? No, I-”

She didn't get another word out before Curt interrupted her again. 

“Making sure my story held up? What, are you taking notes on my movements so you can keep tabs on me? Is that why you wanna know what I've been doing?” 

“No! I-”

Curt got up abruptly. 

“Or are you just reporting everything I say to your superiors? Huh?”

Barb blinked furiously, squinting back her tears. Curt glared at her. 

“Well? Why should I tell you anything I've been doing?” 

Barb jumped up out of her chair. 

“Because we're friends!” 

Curt froze, completely taken aback. 

Barb kept going, not holding back her angry tears anymore. 

“Or at least _ I _thought we were. I guess you're too busy taking advantage of my position to actually return that friendship. I thought everything we went through together last year might have changed that!” She sniffed, the fight going out of her. “Guess not.” 

Curt opened his mouth, then shut it, and sat back down. 

“I'm… I'm sorry I made you think that, Barb. We are friends.” 

She huffed a little but followed his lead and sat too. 

“Well, you could try showing it a little more.” 

“I'm sorry, I guess I was being overly defensive.” 

“Yeah, that was a pretty strong reaction to a fairly innocuous question.” 

Curt just grunted. 

“I guess you still don't really wanna talk about it?” 

“Not unless you wanna tell me why you were looking for the file.” 

“I wasn't-”

“Barb. This friendship thing is a two way street.” 

Barb rubbed the side of her neck. 

“You're right. I went looking for the file myself, but it was just because I wanted to know more about you, about your friends! Plus I thought it would be a good idea to see if there was any record of you in it, I was just looking out for you, I swear!” 

“And if you happened to get a glimpse of the mystery person I've been talking about, that was just gravy, huh?”

Barb had the wherewithal to look admonished. 

Curt swallowed and looked down at his hands, started straightening his cuff. 

“So, what did you find? In the file?” 

Barb’s contrite demeanor may as well have never been there in the first place for how fast it disappeared. 

“Oh, don't worry, there was no mention of you whatsoever! You're in no danger of the Service finding out about your involvement. Or any other intelligence agency, for that matter.” 

She beamed at him. 

Curt laughed a little. “Well, I guess that's a relief.” 

“Mmhmm!” 

Barb drummed her fingers rapidly on the desk. “Also…” 

Curt sighed. 

“Also?” 

“Well, I wanted to ask you… The agent named in the file.” 

Curt’s hands stilled. Barb didn't notice. 

“It wasn't a woman. It was a man named Glass. He's CIA.” 

Curt didn't look up.

“So I guess what I wanted to ask you…” 

Curt shuddered in a deep breath. 

“How did she pull that off?” 

“… What?” 

“Your new girlfriend! How did she get some other agent's name on the file?” 

Curt spoke slowly. 

“You think she had the file tampered with.” 

“Well she must have! And it's probably a quality job too, nothing looked out of place and I wouldn't have had any reason to suspect if you hadn't given me all the details.” 

“Yeah, I did tell you a lot, didn't I.” 

Curt didn't look upset that he'd given her too much information. In contrast to his self-deprecating words he actually looked relieved. Barb chalked it up to him realizing she was just impressed that his girlfriend was so competent, and wasn't going to turn them in. 

“She must be an amazing spy.”

Curt nodded along absent-mindedly. 

Riding the high of having turned the conversation around, Barb felt confident in adding, “I'd love to meet her!”

Curt’s expression turned aghast so quickly Barb almost laughed. 

“Or not! You know, whenever you're ready.” 

She wasn't surprised when Curt silently got up and left. 

* * *

She didn't have to trick Curt into showing up again, which was a relief for the both of them.

He'd somehow gotten wind of the latest tech project her department was working on, and wanted to see if he could get his hands on a prototype. She had told him emphatically “no”, which had put him in more of a sulk than usual so she'd dispensed with the usual platitudes in favor of letting him pick something else from her box of toys. 

After turning down the first three gadgets that had caught his eye (because really, Curt, do you need a grenade launcher in espionage?), Barb let him take one of her spare auto-firing grappling hooks. 

“- and if you set it to ‘grip’ on the switch here, once it makes contact with any surface it will deploy these micro hooks that allow it to grip to practically anything. Really useful for those times when there isn't a handy ledge to aim at-”

“- or if you need to make a quick getaway and you don't have time to aim!”

“Exactly!” 

“I cannot wait to take this guy for a trial run.” 

“Well, I'm just glad you're so excited about something decidedly non-offensive.” 

“Oh, I'm sure you could do all kinds of damage to someone with this! Don't limit things to just what they were built to do, Barb! Keep an open mind, why don'tcha.” 

Barb couldn't even find it in herself to frown. 

“Well, I'll sure try!” 

She watched him turn the hook over in his hands for a few seconds, smiling, before she spoke again. 

“So I was thinking about the guy whose info I found in what should have been your lady friend's file.” 

Curt didn't look up from the grappling hook, but his hand movements slowed. 

“Oh?”

“Yeah. The file looked real official, like, really _ really _ official. Either your girl is a world class forger, or this guy put his name on the file voluntarily. So they're probably friends, right?”

“Uh, yeah. She told me recently that that was the case. A, uh, old contact of hers in the CIA.”

“I thought so! So she's not CIA herself?”

“Nooope. Definitely not.” 

“But this guy is, and that's why the file looks right. Because it is! For all intents and purposes.” 

“Yeah. For all intents and purposes.” 

“So have you ever met this guy?” 

Curt answered like he’d been waiting for her to ask.

“No, I haven’t met him, heard a lot about him but never had the opportunity to meet face to face.”

“Well that's a shame. Sounds like a really useful contact to have!” 

“Oh yeah.”

“You know, if you ever do meet him… maybe you could introduce me.”

“Uhhh, why? You don’t need a contact in the CIA.”

“A girl can never have too many contacts, but that’s not what I meant.”

He looked at her blankly.

“You could… you know…”

No change in his expression. 

“Set me… up?”

A distinct lack of dawning comprehension.

“...With him?”

Curt choked on air.

“You want me to get you a _ date _with Alex- with this Glass guy?”

“I mean, keep it in mind, that’s all I’m asking.”

Curt spluttered for a few more seconds, which stretched on to include even more seconds as he didn’t actually manage to form any words after all that.

Eventually he got out:

“Why are you even- and you don’t know anything about him, you haven't met- why the sudden interest?”

“Well, I have read his file.”

“Oh good, yeah, that’s the best way to get the measure of a man, sure.”

“But mostly I know that when you work in a job like this it's hard to have personal relationships with civilians. Our only real options are people in similar positions, people who have the same intel and responsibilities. I mean, you should know, right?”

“I- what - should I?”

“Well, yeah! The woman you’re seeing right now, she’s in this business, _ and _you met on the job.”

“Right.”

“I guess what I’m trying to get at is that, for someone in my position, this is the best chance I’ve had at romance in the entire time I’ve worked here.”

“Really? You’ve never met anybody you were interested in who works for the ay ess ess?”

Barb stared at Curt for a long moment.

“Not anybody I ever had a chance with, no.”

“Well that’s a shame to hear Barb, although not something I’m totally blindsided by. It’s not like you put yourself out there that much. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen you flirt with a guy!”

Barb stood up. “Well, agent, I guess that about wraps up today's meeting.” 

“But I've only been here for five minutes.” 

“And boy does time fly!” 

“That doesn't-”

“I'll see you next time, Mega.” 

She ushered Curt out the door, ignoring his look of utter bewilderment. 

Well, not so much ignoring as silently savoring the satisfaction of being the one to kick _ him _ out for once. 

* * *

Working where she did, Barb hadn’t thought anything could surprise her anymore. She added that to the list of things she clearly needed to rethink when Curt _ called her office _ to make an _ appointment. _

When the scheduled time came, Barb waited at her desk with bated breath. If he showed up on time on top of everything else that would really be the breaking point. 

Luckily for Barb’s mental stability, Curt waltzed into her office a good fifteen minutes late, although not looking particularly mentally stable himself. 

He held up a hand as he walked into the room.

“I’m gonna have to stop you right there, Barb.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“And besides, we should sweep this room before we talk.”

“I - what?” 

“We should sweep the room? Before talking about anything secret? I know we went through the same training, Barb.”

“You never turned up for any of that training.” 

“But you did!”

“Curt, we bug sweep this room every day. It got swept both before and after every other time you’ve been here. It got swept literally half an hour before you got here now. The sweeping has been done! It’s been swupt!”

“Ok, good, we know there’s no enemy ears in here. Now get rid of the ay ess ess bugs.” 

“_Why would we bug our own building?!_” 

“Look, Barb, I don't pretend to understand how you egg heads up here do things. All I know is I don't want a word of what I'm about to say to leave this room!” 

“What… Are you saying that you didn't care about all of the other illegal things you've been telling me about, leaving this room?” 

Curt was silent for a long moment. 

“You know to be honest, Barb, it hadn't occurred to me.” 

“We don't bug our own people, Mega.”

“Then I guess once again my actions have no consequences, which means that I was right!” 

Barb rubbed one hand over her eyes.

Curt waited politely for her to look at him again.

“So, are you gonna sweep the room?”

“Mega, how many times do I have to tell you-”

“Barb. Please.” 

For the first time since he walked into the room, Barb really looked at Curt. He didn't look like he was just fucking her around, as much as their history would suggest that was the case. He looked… serious. 

And… worried? 

She reached into one of her desk drawers to retrieve a bug sweeper. 

Curt gave her a gratitude-filled smile and sank down into the chair. 

She had been considering just waving the sweeper around for a minute and telling him it was done, but seeing him collapse in relief like that was what really drove home to Barb that Curt, for perhaps the first time in his life, was sincere about something. 

After thoroughly examining the room and finding nothing, naturally, Barb put the sweeper away and sat opposite Curt. 

He was sitting slumped in the chair, eyes closed, hands placed deliberately on the arm rests. 

Barb cleared her throat and his eyes flicked open, head jerking up. 

“I was just resting my eyes! Yeah, ‘cause I hit the gym this morning and I'm pretty beat from my workout. Not that workouts usually wear me out. I just did some new stuff today. You know.” 

Barb nodded along. 

“The room's clear,” she said once he’d finished. 

“OK great. Good. So we can talk about, anything, I guess. Which was the point. So that's…” 

He trailed off. 

“… Good? Right?” she prompted.

Curt briefly met her eyes. She met them right back and smiled encouragingly. A ghost of a smile touched his lips before he ducked his head down again. 

“I'm not really sure how to do this.” 

Barb didn't have a good goddamn idea what _ this _ was, but she wasn't going to risk spooking him into losing what little resolve he had. She'd never seen him be this genuine, at least when he wasn't bleeding out in an elevator in Monte Carlo.

“Take your time?”

He laughed humorlessly. 

“If I take any more time than I already have we'll be here until retirement.” 

The more information she got out of him the less she could predict where this conversation was going. If they were in a different business she'd’ve asked him if he'd killed someone he shouldn't have, but with Curt that was just another day at the office. 

Barb was about to throw caution to the wind and just ask Curt what this was about, dammit, when he blurted out:

“I don't have a girlfriend!”

He said it like he was having a tooth pulled, scrunching his eyes up and leaning away from her. 

Barb blinked a few times, blindsided. 

She tried, “oh, I'm sorry. Did you guys break up?”

“No, Barb, god, of course you're not getting it, I've spent so long holding up this flawless facade- I never had a girlfriend.” 

“I don't understand- you lied to me about dating this agent you've been working with? Why would you bother?” 

“Well, not exactly.” 

Barb just looked at him. 

Curt sighed. 

“You remember Alex Glass?” 

“Yeah, the CIA agent, of course. It’s kinda my job to remember these things.”

“Right, right. Well, I’ve been… working with him.”

“Oh, when did that start?”

“A couple of months ago.” 

“Oh that’s nice- wait. _ Months_? I thought you only-”

“When I gatecrashed the mission he was on in France.”

Barb opened her mouth, said nothing for a long moment, and then closed it.

Curt waited.

Barb felt like she was doing some of the hardest math she’d ever come across in her life, which was saying something.

“So you’ve actually been working with Glass this whole time.”

Curt looked relieved that they were finally on the same page.

“Yes!”

“And there never even was a female agent.”

“Exactly.”

“So not only did you lie about who you were working with, you lied about dating them as well?”

Curt rubbed a hand over his jaw.

“I’m not angry, Curt, I’m just trying to get things straight.”

Curt laughed a little.

“No, it’s not that. I actually only lied about one of those things.”

“I don’t-” 

Barb’s eyes widened comically as the cogs finally clicked into place.

“Oh. _ Ohhh_.”

“I’m sorry I waited so long to tell you.”

Barb started to reach forwards to tell Curt he didn’t need to apologize, then stopped to clap a hand to her mouth.

“Oh my god, I asked you to set me up with him!”

“Well it’s not like you knew-”

“Oh christ, I’m so mortified.”

“Really, Barb, it’s fine-”

“And all those years I spent hitting on you, god that must have made you so uncomfortable…”

“Well now I have no idea what you’re talking about, but really you don’t have to feel bad-”

“I’ve been so oblivious, Curt, how can you ever-”

“Barb!”

She snapped back into the present.

“Just knowing that you care, that you still want to be friends, that my… That this won’t change anything.”

Barb’s embarrassment turned into fondness as he talked.

Curt cleared his throat. 

“Um, yeah. Thank you.”

Barb forced the wetness gathering in the corners of her eyes to stay where it was.

“No problem, agent.”

They smiled at each other in silence for a beat.

“Oh!” Barb perked up again. “That explains why the file was so legitimate looking!”

“-the what now?”

“The file, the mission file you said your girlfriend got help from agent Glass to falsify. It _ wasn’t _false at all!”

“Yeah, I know.”

Barb wasn’t listening to him.

“That’s why I couldn’t find any signs of forgery!”

“Yes, that is the reason. Is this really your most pressing thought on the matter?”

“Oh, I’m so glad I got an answer for that, that was gonna bug me for_ ever_!” 


End file.
